The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced employment figures for April 2013: 165,000 new jobs. No one knows exactly what that means, but one thing is certain: This number will certainly change. Does that indicate government ineptitude or political manipulation? No.
“The rankings are based on predictions made last January about how inflation, unemployment, interest rates and economic output would fare over the course of the year.” – ”Ranking Economists’ 2012 Predictions: The Best and Worst,” Phil Izzo, Wall Street Journal blog
“As the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.” “Show me a forecaster who comes close to the figures year after year, in recessions and booms, and I’ll agree he or she may offer value to investors and executives. Until then, you’ll do just as well guessing the numbers yourself as guessing which forecaster would do better.” – “Why Do Economic Forecasters Still Have Jobs?” Daniel Altman, Big Think
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“Remember when the Icelandics did the unthinkable and, unlike Ireland, told bank creditors to take a hike? They also imposed capital controls and allowed the value of their currency to fall – the Icelandic krona has lost almost half of its value against the euro over the past five years.
The ‘experts’ queued up to assure us that these latter-day Vikings would be severely punished for their impertinence. While no one forecast that a hole would open up in the North Atlantic and swallow Iceland whole, some of the predictions came pretty darned close.”
“It is not unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
– Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776
Related:
“Let the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Expire Already,” Senator Bernie Sanders, Truthdig
“How to raise taxes on the rich,” Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Money
“Tax hike for wealthy won’t kill growth, CBO says,” Reuters via NBC News
“The Great Capitalist Heist: How Paris Hilton’s Dogs Ended Up Better Off Than You,” Gerald Friedman, Naked Capitalism [caution: numbers n' stuff]
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“What do you do when you know it’s the economy that matters, but you’re feeling stupid about how it all works? Do you plunge headfirst into Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations? Do you blow the dust off your college macroeconomics textbook that you couldn’t stand reading even for a grade? Author Michael Goodwin feels your pain, because he found himself in the same predicament—a voting American citizen faced with the truth that he didn’t know anything about the policies he was voting for. Fortunately, Goodwin had done the legwork of untangling the web of economic knowledge for us. Even better, with the help of illustrator Dan E. Burr, Goodwin delivers that knowledge in the accessible format of the graphic novel. Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work), in Words and Pictures eliminates feelings of stupidity in the face of economic-speak while demonstrating how it really is the economy and why nobody should be stupid about it.”
“Can a Comic Book Make Economics—the ‘Dismal Science’—Fun, and Understandable?” Bob Duggan, Big Think
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Every year since 1971 the World Economic Forum, a meeting of billionaires and their pet statemen and economists, has convened in the Swiss Alps at Davos. This year they have been joined by the 99%. “OccupyWEF” protesters can’t afford the town’s luxury hotels, so they’re using the famed ski resort’s snow as lodging, building a community of igloos.
Excerpts from “The Book of Jobs,” Joseph E. Stiglitz, Vanity Fair:
“There are 6.6 million fewer jobs in the United States than there were four years ago. Some 23 million Americans who would like to work full-time cannot get a job. Almost half of those who are unemployed have been unemployed long-term. Wages are falling—the real income of a typical American household is now below the level it was in 1997.”
In a regular monthly exercise in statistical flim-flam, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the jobless numbers for October 2011.
The meaningless unemployment rate in the headlines: 9% , down a whopping 0.1%. The real unemployment rate: 16.2% (includes people who no longer get unemployment benefits, need work but have stopped looking because it’s futile, or have only found part-time work). Learn more here.
There was a net gain of 80,000 jobs in the past month, not all of them at McDonald’s (some were at Wendy’s). At that rate, all of America’s 13.9 million unemployed should be working by about 2030.
Related:
“Most unemployed Americans are no longer receiving unemployment benefits,” Christopher S. Rugaber, AP via New York Daily News
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Occupy Wall Street protesters in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park had their gasoline-power generators confiscated by the NYFD as potential fire hazards. How to power life’s basic necessities, computers and cell phones? Bicycle-powered generators.
Further south, 300 Florida protesters marched on the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The chief oppostiton to the good-natured and well-tanned marchers was a torrential downpour.
Related: Appropedia.org Appropriate Technology Portal
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Hundreds of thousands of middle class Israelis began protesting a huge jump in dairy prices this summer, resulting in the largest demonstrations the country has ever seen. These soon became protests about widening economic inequalities in the small nation.
The protests are getting results. The Israeli cabinet has just approved a new tax plan reducing taxes on low-income wage earners and raising them for the rich and for corporations. Other new policies include cuts to the defense budget.
